Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Here in the calm, mountainous area away from the coast and away from the hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes of the coastal and flat lands, we had calamitous weather complete with an earthquake tremor warning not too far from here. The sky went dramatically from light to dark to light to dark and rain to sun. Later in the afternoon there was a tornado spotted on the road about an hour or two from here.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Friday night I was roped in to watch a new Western movie, traditional in the sense of the lone hero, violence, swagger, horse-riding, action and tragedy, but with a supernatural twist in that the hero, Jonah Hex, played by Josh Brolin, could talk to dead people. Megan Fox was in this movie, so I could finally see what all the commotion over her has been about. Despite being tired after a long day, I did not fall asleep while watching it, but I'm not sure why. It's definitely not my kind of movie, but Josh Brolin was channeling Clint Eastwood in the best of ways. The plot was formulaic, but something kept me interested and alert -- possibly the margaritas from the Mexican grill restaurant I consumed beforehand. I learned by reading the end credits that it's based on a comic-book story. Then the campiness made more sense. I wasn't sure going in whether it would be a comedy; and I could tell right after it started that it wasn't, but there was one funny line when Jonah Hex looked at a dog that suddenly appeared, and he gruffly addressed the dog: "I don't know what to say to you," he said. Funny because that's how I feel sometimes about babies and pets. Even though the movie was rated PG-13, it caused my sensitive brain to have a couple of scary dreams about fires. Before the movie started, I looked around the theater, and then asked my friend, "Is this the opening night for this movie?" "Yes," was the answer. "There are six people in here!" I observed. Next time I pick the movie!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

I haven't sat down to watch regular old television in months and months and months ... but last night my friend ushered me off the phone at 9 p.m. so she could watch Top Chef on Bravo, and urged me to do the same. So, having nothing better to do, as is probably the case with most reasons to watch television, I watched it. I felt so bad for the gray-haired, dred-locked, spectacled chef who was rated the bottom chef and was asked to leave the show. They showed him wiping away a tear from under his glasses and I felt his pain. He used a store-bought pastry to add to his maple syrup and macadamia-nut creamy dessert, and the judges were very unhappy that he hadn't made his own pastry in the half hour or so that they were given to make their things. I woke up this morning feeling bad for him all over again. He had a nice smile. Next up, the same show except they replaced the cooking concept to art challenges. Finally, a reality show that I wanted to see the end of. The challenge was to take a mountain of old appliances (mostly a lot of old TVs) and make a 3-D work of art. I feel like I just discovered what to do with all of that post-dinner, pre-bed doldrums! But I don't want to be a casualty of normalcy, so that's probably why I have resisted.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Streaming movies from Netflix via Wii is the best thing that happened to my TV! Beetlejuice is a great movie, no matter how many times a person sees it. Last night I started watching the Julie/Julia movie. Julie has a blog, which is a big part of the movie. She makes Julia Childs' food and then writes about it. What resulted was a movie deal and a book. It sounds so easy! The big wide world found her blog and liked it. If nothing else, I felt like cooking after watching for a little while. It's unavoidable. I remember watching Julia Childs's cooking show on PBS once a long time ago. It was one of those days, a very, very long time ago, when I had nothing to do, and there was nothing to watch on TV so I watched the only thing that was not golf, tennis, an infomercial, or the shopping channel. I watched it for a few minutes and decided I would rather do something else. But the movie glamorizes her in a very appealing and charming way. By the time either Julie or Julia became tiresome, the movie makers switched to the other one. The one thing that holds me back from cooking creatively is the expanding waistline ... but in my mind, I'm about ready to put together the most amazing grocery list.